The former chairman said club bosses had ‘sold the family silver’ and feared the team would struggle without their talismanic number nine, who he signed to the club as a schoolboy.

Mr Shepherd said both sides must have wanted Monday’s shock £35m transfer, which came just months after Carroll signed a new contract at St James’.

The comments came as the fall-out over Carroll’s move continued, with Newcastle United chairman Derek Llambias hitting back at comments made by Tyneside legend Alan Shearer by attacking his managerial record.

Gosforth-born former England star Shearer had suggested fans would be “angry” after assurances Carroll would not be sold were broken.

In response Mr Llambias reportedly said: “Do I care what Alan Shearer has to say? When he ran the this club we were relegated after picking up just five points from his eight games in charge.”

Shearer has also called for all £35m of Carroll’s transfer fee to be spent on brining new players to Tyneside.

In response, Mr Llambias reportedly said: “Mike Ashley has only ever put money into this club, he has never taken a single penny out. And he won’t take a single penny of this £35m either.”

Mr Shepherd, whose sale of shares paved the way for Mike Ashley to take over at the club, said there was ‘no way’ he would have let Carroll leave, and both club and player could have enforced their existing deal, which still had five year left to run. He said building a side meant you had to be able to say ‘no’, revealing he rebuffed big money offers from Liverpool for Alan Shearer when he was in charge of the club.

He added, as a fan, his big concern was over how the team would benefit from the money.

His comment came as Alan Pardew, who had assured fans Carroll would not be leaving St James when he was appointed, said Mike Ashley would be making the cash available for transfer funds in the summer. Mr Shepherd, who brought Michael Owen to Newcastle for £17m, in 2005, said his concern was the club might struggle to lure players with the same impact and future prospects as Carroll.

He said: “They’ve sold the future of the club, Carroll will go on to play for England for the next 10 years. I’ll be very disappointed if they don’t reinvest. Why would they sell him otherwise?

“That lad could’ve taken the team forward much like Alan Shearer. We could’ve sold Shearer, I got an offer from Liverpool for big money, but I refused it, because I didn’t want him to leave Newcastle.”

Mr Shepherd continued: “Nobody could have pushed him (Carroll) into anything, he could have just said he didn’t want to go. When he says he was ‘pushed’, he could have just said no.

“There’s always two sides of a story. Both sides are trying to blame each other. I think they want shelter from the storm.”